Haemorheological profile in patients with systemic sclerosis

Rheopheresis for Digital Ulcers and Raynaud's Phenomenon in Systemic Sclerosis Refractory to Conventional Treatments

Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) is almost universally present in patients with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). RP represents a generalized vasculopathy and potentially lead to digital ulcers (DU), which may be complicated by superinfection, tissue necrosis, and limb loss. We report the analysis of an extracorporeal procedure in a 36-year-old female patient with diffuse SSc with refractory RP and DU despite treatment with diltiazem, candesartan, sildenafil, and intravenous iloprost. We performed rheopheresis (RheoP), a variant of double-filtration plasmapheresis, as a potential new treatment option for refractory patients despite optimal medical therapy. We performed two RheoP per week every 4 weeks for a total of 3 months. Clinical improvement in DU healing occurred with no adverse events directly related to the treatment. While there was no reduction in the number of Raynaud attacks with RheoP, a significant reduction of the duration of attacks from a median of 15 (5-45, 95% CI 10-15) to 7 (3-30, 95% CI 6-10) minutes with an improvement of the Raynaud Condition Score (RCS) improved from 4 to 2. In conclusion, RheoP is a feasible and potentially beneficial treatment modality in patients with refractory RP and DU. We propose that RheoP should be investigated in a larger number of patients in a clinical trial setting.

Quantitative Measurement of Erythrocyte Aggregation as a Systemic Inflammatory Marker by Ultrasound Imaging: A Systematic Review

This systematic review is aimed at answering two questions: (i) Is erythrocyte aggregation a useful biomarker in assessing systemic inflammation? (ii) Does quantitative ultrasound imaging provide the non-invasive option to measure erythrocyte aggregation in real time? The search was executed through bibliographic electronic databases CINAHL, EMB Review, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed and the grey literature. The majority of studies correlated elevated erythrocyte aggregation with inflammatory blood markers for several pathologic states. Some studies used "erythrocyte aggregation" as an established marker of systemic inflammation. There were limited but promising articles regarding the use of quantitative ultrasound spectroscopy to monitor erythrocyte aggregation. Similarly, there were limited studies that used other ultrasound techniques to measure systemic inflammation. The quantitative measurement of erythrocyte aggregation has the potential to be a routine clinical marker of inflammation as it can reflect the cumulative inflammatory dynamics in vivo, is relatively simple to measure, is cost-effective and has a rapid turnaround time. Technologies like quantitative ultrasound spectroscopy that can measure erythrocyte aggregation non-invasively and in real time may offer the advantage of continuous monitoring of the inflammation state and, thus, may help in rapid decision making in a critical care setup.

Therapeutic plasma exchange for the treatment of systemic sclerosis: A comprehensive review and analysis

Background:

Therapeutic plasma exchange has been tried as a treatment approach for systemic sclerosis since 1978 based on the rationale that some circulating factor is involved in disease pathogenesis, for example, autoantibodies or immune complexes, and that removing the potential pathogenic factors could lead to symptom improvement. Based on our impression that clinicians and researchers are largely unaware that a large volume of research has been published about the use of therapeutic plasma exchange as a treatment for systemic sclerosis, we conducted a comprehensive review and analysis of all published research on this topic.

Results:

We identified 46 relevant articles that met our search criteria, involving a total of 572 patients. Of these, 19 were case studies; the rest ranged from small observational studies to prospective randomized clinical trials. In all but two studies, most patients receiving therapeutic plasma exchange showed improvements in both clinical symptoms and laboratory markers, including significant improvement in Raynaud’s symptoms and healing of digital ulceration after three to four weekly treatments. The beneficial effects from even a short course of therapeutic plasma exchange treatments were long-lasting, typically 6 months or longer. Therapeutic plasma exchange was very well tolerated. Adverse events were rare and, in almost all cases, mild and transitory.

Conclusion:

These results suggest that long-term therapeutic plasma exchange may offer a low-risk way to control and in some cases reverse systemic sclerosis symptoms. The mechanism for the clinical improvements seen from therapeutic plasma exchange in systemic sclerosis patients is unclear. Therefore, additional studies of therapeutic plasma exchange effects in systemic sclerosis appear to be highly desirable.

Cerebrospinal fluid viscosity: a novel diagnostic measure for acute meningitis

INTRODUCTION

Early diagnosis of acute meningitis has paramount importance in clinical practice because of mortality and morbidity of the disease. Examination of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has critical value for the diagnosis of acute meningitis and discrimination of bacterial and aseptic meningitis. It has been previously reported that plasma viscosity can be used as an inflammatory marker. In this study we aimed to evaluate the role of CSF viscosity as a complementary measure for diagnosis of meningitis in suspected patients.

METHODS

Forty-one consecutive patients who underwent lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis were studied prospectively. Twenty-seven patients were diagnosed with meningitis, of whom 13 patients had aseptic meningitis and 14 patients had bacterial meningitis. Meningitis was ruled out in 14 patients.

RESULTS

CSF protein and CSF viscosity were significantly higher in patients with meningitis compared to nonmeningitis. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that CSF viscosity was highly sensitive (100%) and specific (93%); measures for the diagnosis of meningitis in the study population was comparable to those of CSF protein. Additionally, patients with meningitis were also divided into two groups as having bacterial and aseptic meningitis. CSF viscosity also significantly differed between bacterial and aseptic meningitis.

CONCLUSION

The CSF viscosity is a simple and easy method and can be used as an adjunctive measure for the diagnosis of meningitis. With the support of further and larger clinical studies, CSF viscosity may have a role in the discrimination of bacterial versus aseptic meningitis.